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The Future of Factions

Destiny 2 Factions

Will factions stay or leave in Destiny 2?

The ships are battle-scarred. Many are barely spaceworthy. As warp drives wind down several seem to lose power and begin to drift. Some of the largest craft bear imagery familiar to frequent visitors to the tower: Dead Orbit symbols, the simple icon of the Vanguard. The New Monarchy and Future War Cult as well, though fewer examples can be seen. Others bears symbols never seen in the Tower to date.

Every single ship, from the largest cruiser to the smallest personal craft, carries shards of stone, remnants of the City and the Tower. Banners too, tattered and worn from entering and leaving warp.

Welcome back guardians. Today we are discussing the main tower factions, New Monarchy, Dead Orbit and Future War cult and their potential involvement in Destiny 2. Using the grimoire cards and item descriptions I will describe the lore behind each faction and their likely response to the Cabal invasion.

Many have noticed the prominent role of New monarchy within the Destiny 2 trailer, and have asked why? Why are they the main focus, where is Future War Cult and Dead Orbit. I hope this video can provide some clarity to the factions response.

Before we start, I want to say thank you for helping me achieve 100 000 subscribers on youtube, it was a massive goal of mine, and I am working on a thank you video, which I think you will enjoy. On another note, being featured on Bungie’s community focus has also been a huge goal and if you would like to help, there is a Forum thread link below.

This is myelin games and I hope you enjoy this latest destiny lore episode.

Let’s start with New Monarchy as they seem to feature the most in the Destiny 2 trailers. As most will be aware, New Monarchy is defined by 7 tenents. These are detailed in the Ghost fragment New monarchy grimoire card and reads as follows;

To secure our walls against the enemy without.
2. To secure the rights and liberties of every upstanding citizen.
3. To sponsor the sciences of the City, and to salvage the ruins beyond, so that our Golden Age might be reborn.
4. To support the Guardian Orders by leading the City in technological innovation.
5. To support the natural harmony of the City, and to actively dissuade any group or individual that might disrupt that harmony.
6. To hold all individuals, compacts, and alliances to the highest standards of productivity and right behavior.
7. To, by vote of the Consensus, abolish the Consensus, and transfer ultimate power, in order that the rights and liberties of all citizens be secured, to a single sovereign of unimpeachable character

If you don’t know, the Consensus consists of a representative from each faction, New Monarchy, Dead Orbit and Future War Cult and the Vanguard. The Consensus was created following the Faction Wars in order to maintain peace within the City. Together the Consensus and the Speaker rule the City. This is reinforced by the Factions card which reads,

“The City’s earliest days, various factions vied for the hearts and minds of the refugee masses. Power struggles threatened to shatter an already tenuous existence.

The following conflicts, known as the Faction Wars, brought the City to its knees. When the chaos grew intolerable, a gathering of Guardians fought to end the conflict.

The new peace brought a new order: the City Consensus and the Speaker ruled together, and the surviving great factions worked through civil channels to pursue their agendas.”

Ghost fragment: The City Age provides some insight into how the Consensus and the Speaker operates. This card describes the Consensus having a meeting and trying to decide which Faction should be granted a seat amongst the Consensus, as the Concordat has just been abolished. Once the Consenus have decided to allow Future War Cult a seat amongst the Consensus, they send the proposal to the Speaker. The card reads,

“Let’s take it to a vote. All in favor of the ascension of the Future War Cult?”

“Unanimous? Good. We’ll grant the Future War Cult access to the Tower and a seat among us. Ghost, please offer the Speaker this proposal.”

“Now onto the next order of business…Shaxx is here with another proposal for his Crucible.”

As you can see, decisions are made as a group, proposals are then sent to the speaker for approval. Essentially there is a process to making decisions that impact the City, there appears to be checks and balances that you would see of a typical government. New Monarchy does not want that, New Monarchy wants a single sovereign, as stated in their 7th tenant, a sovereign is a supreme ruler, so they want a single entity leading the city.

Whilst this does not sound like the best idea, over the years, New monarchy has done an impressive job at crafting a consistent message; they care for the City, they want to protect the City, they want to work with the City and it’s people and they have the City’s best interests at heart.

Have a listen to the New Monarchy grimoire card, it reads,

The New Monarchy rose from the ashes of the Faction Wars with a simple, inclusive guiding tenet: “Together we will rise.”

And this, the Mark of the Executor reads,

The New Monarchy is the aegis that guards humanity.

Not to mention that it was New Monarchy that fought with the Concordat at Bannerfall, it was New Monarchy that prevented Lysander’s war effort to topple the Vanguard and the Tower. New monarchy has developed a legacy of trust with the City and whilst, previously they would never be able to achieve their seventh tenet, i.e. a single sovereign leader, the Cabal invasion provides a massive opportunity for New Monarchy to push their agenda of having a single leader.

It makes complete sense for New Monarchy to be on the front line during the Cabal invasion, they once again want to demonstrate to the people of the City that they are 100% dedicated to protecting the City, which may be why New monarchy is featured more so in the Trailers than the other factions.

I think it would be very easy for new monarchy to justify to the people that in order to be responsive to the Cabal attack we need a single leader, the previous system is no longer effective, the Consensus is scattered, the Vanguard is split, the Speaker is no-where to be seen, there is no possible way that we can make decisions with the City under attack, desperate times calls for desperate measures, we need a single leader to make quick, responsive decisions whilst we are being attacked by the Cabal.

To illustrate this point even further, have a listen to some of the New Monarchy items, the High Command Cloak reads,

“The City demands a leader. Now, before it is too late.” —Executor Hideo

Heart of Order reads,
The City is divided. We must unite beneath a single will.

Whilst New Monarchy might see the Cabal invasion as an opportunity to appoint a single Sovereign of the City, how would the other Factions react, Dead Orbit and Future War Cult. Once again, we can gain a fairly good perspective by looking into the Grimoire cards.

Dead Orbit is called Dead Orbit because they literally believe that Earth has no future or hope and that the Traveler is not our saviour, earth is a dead orbit. The Diaspora Shell reads,

“For Ghosts who believe that Earth is a Dead Orbit”

The Dead Orbit card reads,

“The Traveler is not our only salvation. Another future lies out among the light of other stars.”

Dead Orbit’s theology has developed from mere fatalism into an obsession with worlds beyond Earth. Now their focus is on the building of a starfaring fleet, cobbled together from the ashes of our past and the spoils of war.

And this, Heliopause Gauntlets,

“We are not fatalists. We’re optimists. We believe life exists beyond this dead orbit.”

So, Dead Orbit is building a star fleet, essentially to escape Earth and the Traveler and to rebuild elsewhere. Knowing this, what would be Dead Orbit’s response to the Cabal invasion? Well I believe there is a massive clue in the mission “Outbound signal”. Dead Orbit fleets are actually the ones who detected the Cabal signal being sent to the Cabal emperor. The mission says this,

On my order, the Dead Orbit fleet is well clear of Saturn. We’ll need them to defend the City, if it comes to that. They’ve picked up a high-gain signal from the Cabal beachhead on the Dreadnaught.

The message is outward bound. Its target is far outside the solar system. We have to know what they’re saying and who they’re saying it to.

Signal’s down. It was encrypted, but some of the headers are legible. This was a detailed distress signal intended for…the head of the Cabal Empire.

I’ll pass the scan from your Ghost to the Cryptarchy. I have a feeling we’ll want to know as much about this signal as we can. In the meantime, that’s a job well done.
When you see Arach Jalal, tell him, “thanks for the tip.”

This mission dialogue has a number of clues in it and could be interpreted in a number of ways. Firstly, it confirms Dead Orbit has an actual working fleet. This fleet may respond in two separate ways, it may choose to stay and assist the City during the Cabal invasion, as Zavala hopes they will do or it may choose to flee. Dead Orbit has always believed that Earth was doomed and imagine the response when Dead Orbit’s fleet sees the incoming Cabal Invasion, this massive invasion, an invasion that they have always predicted, they have been trying to encourage citizens to escape the Traveler and the City, all it does is bring war, our future is elsewhere, so why defend the City, why not escape whilst they can?

From a lore point of view, I think Dead Orbit would be the easiest to remove from Destiny’s story, as they are most likely to abandon the City, however from a gameplay point of view, I don’t think bungie would ever just remove one faction, I think all factions would have to be removed, or all factions would have to stay. So my predictions for Destiny 2 is that, I think all factions will stay, considering New Monarchy’s involvement and I think we will see the Dead Orbit fleet protect the City. Space battles confirmed Destiny 2…

Last but not least, lets speak about Future War Cult. Future War Cult in my opinion will play an integral role to the storyline of Destiny for quite some time. I believe that Future War Cult is linked to the creation of Exos and also the Exo Stranger.

I have detailed videos that describe this relationship, see my Praedyth video and also my Exo Stranger, I will link them below, but essentially the questline for “No time to explain”, the exotic primary that looks the same as the Stranger’s rifle, links Future War Cult to Praedyth, the Vex researcher Maya Sundaresh and also the Exo Stranger.

The greatest evidence for this is in the Ghost Fragment: Vex 5 card. Maya Sundaresh is working on a secret project located in Lhasa, which is the capital of Tibet. She is building a device which is referred to as a mind ship, the card reads,

“We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. An observatory, yes, but I think of it as a mind-ship. Capable of displacing its payload across space and time.”

The card continues to provide more information about this device saying that the human subjects turned mad and some even committed suicide, haunted by visions of their future. This experimentation is being overseen by a Warmind and the Warmind devises a drug to help protect and prepare the researchers. Even with this, Maya Sundaresh makes an extremely interesting comment, she says,

“I think it’s clear that part of the problem is substrate. We need more than flesh and drug to survive this.”

This card implies that the Human mind is too weak for this device, the visions that the device is granting is sending the researchers mad. The card finishes with Maya Sundaresh saying,

“I can’t take this journal out with me, so I’ve left it for the others, and asked them to continue the log. Maybe it’ll become a tradition. The gospel of our little cult.”

Yes, I do believe this is a reference to the Future War Cult, these journal notes from Maya Sundaresh would inspire the founding of the Future War Cult. This is strongly reinforced in the Ghost Fragment: Future War Cult grimoire card, which describes how FWC found a “device” in Tibet, the same place Maya was conducting the research, this device also grants visions of the future and sends the subjects mad, hence I believe it is one in the same device started by Maya. The card reads,

“No wonder the Device was abandoned. The human mind is too weak for it. Too weak to look into the Future, or to understand what it sees.”

I do believe, that this is one of the reasons to why Exo’s were created, Exos were needed to use this device, as it was stated that the human mind was too weak. An Exo mind may be able to survive. However, how is all of this related to the Exo Stranger, well the Ghost Fragment: The Exo Stranger 2 is written with the same format as Ghost Fragment: Future War Cult.

Future War cult use the format,

“RECORD xxx- CHASM- XXXX”

And the Ghost fragment: The Exo Stanger reads

“RECORD XXX- BRIDGE- XXX”

This is one of the reasons to why I believe Maya Sundaresh became the Exo Stranger, Maya Sundaresh was a scientist, this documentation was how she wrote her journal, which detailed the experiments with the device based on Vex technology, that allowed visions of the future, she knew the human mind was weak, so she became an Exo, and now as the Exo Stranger, she continues to use the same style of research documentation.

So knowing this, how would Future War Cult react to the Cabal invasion? Well, I think they are extremely unpredictable in comparison to New Monarchy and Dead Orbit. They are extremely secretive and mysterious as reinforced in the Future War Cult grimoire card which reads,

“While the origins of the Future War Cult are greatly debated, their mark has been found on ancient chambers and encampments throughout the system, dating them back to the late Golden Age.

Though their secrets are vast, they have proven indispensable in our struggle against the Darkness, earning them power and respect in the City Consensus and among Guardians.”

Likewise, the leader of Future War Cult, Lakshmi-2 is equally mysterious, the Future War Cult Faction rep card reads,

“There is nothing Lakshmi-2 likes more than secrets. Her origins are unknown; her appearance in the City was abrupt. She courts select Guardians for initiation into the higher mysteries of the Future War Cult, espousing a brutal philosophy of endless struggle.”

Without doubt, the future war cult will stay and fight against the cabal, I think the bigger question is how our they linked to the Exos and the Exo Stranger and what secrets still remain hidden.

Whilst, I am hopeful that each faction will choose to defend the City during the Cabal invasion, I have to question whether a timeline exist where we have already lost. The Mystery: The Vault of Glass 3 may provide a glimpse into our future, it reads,

“A convoy of Guardian craft, hundreds strong. Ships of all sizes and shapes can be seen, from venerable craft that have been salvaged from the Golden Age through to City designs to vessels that have yet to emerge from the Shipwright’s hangars.

The ships are battle-scarred. Many are barely spaceworthy. As warp drives wind down several seem to lose power and begin to drift. Some of the largest craft bear imagery familiar to frequent visitors to the tower:

Dead Orbit symbols, the simple icon of the Vanguard. The New Monarchy and Future War Cult as well, though fewer examples can be seen. Others bears symbols never seen in the Tower to date.

Every single ship, from the largest cruiser to the smallest personal craft, carries shards of stone, remnants of the City and the Tower. Banners too, tattered and worn from entering and leaving warp.”

Let’s just hope this is not our only future.

That concludes this latest destiny lore episode, if you would like to support the channel, leave the phrase, “Dead Orbit”, to acknowledge the endless trouble and war that the Traveler attracts. This is myelin games and I hope you enjoy this latest destiny lore episode. Peace.